by Gini Koch
“So whatever happened, it got the katyhoppers, too, meaning it’s not something triggered by the floor, and it also means the floor didn’t fall out from under them. Though the presence of the poop confirmed that already.”
Think, we had to think. Christopher had done something, I knew it, and that something had disappeared everyone in the tunnel. Really prayed that, whatever had happened, it was very good, or at least neutral, versus very bad.
Jeff shook himself. “Okay, I’m Christopher. I’m stuck here, and I have to handle it. I don’t want to admit that I just led everyone to a dead end, partly because it’ll cause panic, and partly because I’ll sound like a moron, and I hate that.”
“Sounds like Christopher to me. So, then what?”
“He’s the former Head of Imageering, he’s been in worse situations than this. There’s nothing trying to kill anyone in this tunnel. He considers options. We don’t have many.” Jeff looked uncomfortable.
“He gets pissed, doesn’t he? That’s why you look like you don’t want to share your next thought. You bellow and let it out, but he doesn’t. So he’s angry—at the situation, with himself, with me for saving some cows and so letting the snakipedes know where we were, and with me for telling him the tunnel led somewhere when it appears that it does not. What does he do when he’s angry, especially when he has no one nearby who he can shout at, snarl at, or snark at?” I was certain he’d been running through all his Patented Glares, though, and possibly created a new one due to this situation.
“You know . . .” Jeff cocked his head and held my hand tightly in his. “There are times when you get so angry you just want to hit something.” He stepped us closer to the dead end. “Like the thing that’s blocking you.”
With that, he pulled his fist back, then slammed it into the wall in front of us.
Results were immediate. And, as with so many things that had happened so far on this planet, it wasn’t something I’d have expected in, if not a million years, certainly a good thousand.
CHAPTER 38
THE STONE IN FRONT of us was a circle, and that circle activated. It glowed a bright blue-white and made a humming sound, just like a machine will when it’s said to be purring.
The circle didn’t touch the sides of the tunnel, but it was close. I didn’t have a lot of time to look, however, because blue-white light zoomed out from the rock and went past and through us, just as if the flat circle of light was actually the end of a tube being pushed down the tunnel.
The light enveloped us. There was a distinct feeling of movement, similar to the feeling I got when I walked through a gate only, happily, without the nausea. And then it stopped. And we weren’t in the tunnel anymore.
Nor were we alone.
We were in another cavern, but not the one we’d just left. Looked behind me. Yep, there was the tunnel we’d used. Only it looked different. Just a little, but still, different. This cavern was shaped differently than the one we’d been in before, and in fact the tunnel entrance was far closer to this particular amphitheater and therefore the cavern’s mouth. All I could see outside was white. The whitest white I’d ever seen. Got the impression I was seeing this world’s version of snow, though I didn’t feel any colder here than I had before.
Happily, we’d found everyone else, and it was clear that they were waiting for us, based on the expectant looks on everyone’s faces, human as well as Lecanora. It was hard to tell with the katyhoppers and Big Birds, expression-wise, but the ocellars and chochos also looked relieved we’d arrived, and I could tell by the way the katyhoppers were waving their antennae and the Big Bird were ruffling their feathers that they’d been worried, too. The bosthoon didn’t seem to have an opinion about us one way or the other. Chose not to be bitter.
Bruno flew into my arms and we had a cuddle. He was followed by Ginger and Wilbur, who both demanded their own pets and cuddles. Heard Jeff muttering about how we didn’t need to add in more alien animals into our menagerie. Ignored him.
“Really glad you figured out how the warp tunnel worked,” Chuckie said. “Almost as glad as I was when Christopher triggered it.”
“Warp tunnel?” I managed to ask.
“Where are we?” was Jeff’s question.
“That’s a great question,” Chuckie said. “We have no idea. However, I have a good guess, based on a variety of factors I haven’t had time to discuss with you yet.”
“The white part of this world,” Jerry said. “Based on, you know, looking outside.”
“No argument, makes sense. You know what doesn’t make sense? How did a warp tunnel get into a world that doesn’t have microwave ovens, let alone spaceflight?”
“My guess is outside influence,” Chuckie replied. “There’s a lot that’s unusual with this world.”
“We’re traveling with beings that can read minds or move things using telekinesis. Let’s talk unusual.”
“You’re married to someone who can run at hyperspeed and knows what everyone around him is feeling, and you talk to animals. I’m talking about unusual for a planet. And I want to discuss this now, right now, because the warp tunnel confirms outside influence, but there are other indicators.”
“Chuck thinks this planet is really small,” Christopher said. “We had this discussion earlier today, when he and I were going all over. He measured shadows for some reason.”
Managed not to say that he was lucky Lorraine, Claudia, and Serene weren’t here, because they’d tell him he was an idiot.
“You never paid attention to things that mattered in school,” Lorraine said.
Jeff and I both jumped and looked around. Sure enough, there she was, arm around Joe’s waist.
Claudia and Randy wandered out from behind the bosthoon they must have been using as a make-out shield. “Eratosthenes used the method effectively over two thousand years ago on Earth,” she said. “Chuck just applied it again here.”
“It’s great to see you guys. Um, anyone else with you?”
“I’m here, Kitty,” Serene said, as she came around from behind another bosthoon. “But I don’t know where Brian is.” I was relieved to see the girls, but she looked ready to cry. I could understand that—her husband was a human with no enhancements. We had several missing humans, and I was worried about all of them.
“We’ll find him,” I said quickly. “And everyone else. But why were you guys hiding?”
“We weren’t,” Serene said. “There’s something here we were studying while we waited for you two to figure out how to trigger the warp tunnel.” She turned and went back to whatever she’d been looking at. The other girls and their husbands did the same.
“How did you all find the girls?” Jeff asked.
“They were investigating this cavern and tunnel when we came through,” Jerry said. “They landed in this part of the world. It looks like snow out there because it is. They were cold, they looked for shelter, they found it here.”
“We’ve had time to get the story,” Hughes said. “You two took forever.”
“Yeah,” Walker added. “We were wondering if we were going to have to use the tunnel to get back to show you how it worked.”
“Were you having sex?” Jerry asked.
“My money’s on yes,” Hughes said.
“Nah, we’re in the middle of danger, they waited,” Walker countered. Accurately. “But I’ll bet they made out.” Very accurately.
“Hilarious,” Jeff said. “Kitty and I are laughing. We’re just keeping it all inside.”
“Look, you need to hear this. This world is small,” Chuckie said, as he indicated we should follow the others. “Far smaller than Earth, about the size of the moon.”
Looked toward this cavern’s mouth. “It’s still light here. I mean, not like it’s high noon, but still, light. I have no idea if that means this world goes clockwise or counterclockwise when it sp
ins, or if it even spins, but night had fallen back in the Bronze Lands, just before we went to the tunnels.”
“The moon is still large for us, Kitty,” Chuckie said patiently. “But even on a planet this small, yes, you’ll have sections that go dark, or light, before others, as the planet turns.”
“Okay, if you say so. So it was easy to go all over?”
“No,” Christopher said, as we wended our way through animals of various shapes and sizes. “That map is accurate—the continent is pretty much a circle. What the map doesn’t show you is that the blue section is all water, and it extends to go around the continent.”
“Think of us as being on a round Australia, but an Australia on the moon,” Chuckie said. “The issue isn’t that. The issue is gravity.”
“Having fallen from a great height on this planet, I can promise you that gravity’s still working here.”
“Yes, it is,” Chuckie said patiently. “But not as it should. For the size of this planet—moon-sized, remember—we should be able to jump just like the astronauts did and do when they’re there.”
“You mean leap tall buildings with a single bound?”
“Yes. And we can’t. I feel the same as when we’re on Earth, and so does everyone else, I’ve checked.”
“Yeah, I can’t run faster or lift more than I can at home,” Jeff said. “Though I’m not tiring out as quickly.”
“None of us from Earth are,” Lorraine said as we reached what she and the other girls were so interested in. It was an orb, about the size of a soccer ball, and it glowed blue-white. It was also floating between two cones, not in contact with the cones’ tips. The cones were set in the ground and the roof of the cavern, like a space-aged stalagmite and stalactite set. “I think the air here is oxygen rich.”
“That looks just like it’s from a movie, where if we touch that orb, we’re going to get sucked into another world or universe or something. Or else it’ll bounce all over the place causing mass destruction.”
“Yes, and we’re not sure what it’s going to do if we touch it,” Claudia said. “So we haven’t.”
“Yet,” Serene added, for honesty’s sake, presumably.
“So, while we stare at this thing that is clearly manmade but not by any man on this planet, Chuckie’s making some point about gravity and Australia.”
“The planet’s too small to have the gravitational pull it does. Meaning it’s either a manmade planet, which seems unlikely based on our knowledge of this solar system, or else its core is made of heavy metals.”
“Like what?” Christopher asked.
“Like plutonium or uranium,” Chuckie replied. “You know, what we use to make nuclear weapons.”
CHAPTER 39
“EXCUSE ME?” Jeff asked.
“How would you know that?” Christopher asked.
“Plutonium and uranium are heavy metals, the ones at the bottom of the periodic table,” Chuckie explained patiently. “In order to have a planet this size duplicate the gravity of a planet six times larger, said planet has to have extremely heavy elements making up its core.” Of course, Chuckie was as smart as the Dazzlers. Smarter, really. So this was him being really nice to those slower minds he had to work with.
Chuckie was right as always, of course. We’d needed to know this, me in particular, because this information now gave me a good idea of what was going on. But I needed to ask a couple questions first. “Chuckie and girls, is it possible that a world would naturally form land sections in the spirals that the map the Lecanora have insinuates is the case here?”
“Possible,” Claudia said. “There are some planets in other solar systems that have this kind of spiral formation on their crusts. It’s rare, but there are some out there.”
“Most like that are closer to the galactic core,” Lorraine said.
“How do you know that? I mean that seriously. You guys were born and raised on Earth.”
The girls shrugged. “We learned about the galaxy in school,” Serene said.
“You know, where the guys spent their time focused on honing their talents and running really far, but never studying the things that really matter.” Lorraine wasn’t trying to hide her disdain for talents and track. Refrained from comment, because this wasn’t a new mindset for her or any other Dazzler—it was why most of our younger A-C women wanted to marry humans.
“Besides, the galaxy is one of our hobbies,” Claudia added.
Jeff, Christopher, and I all exchanged a look, but we didn’t say anything. Only for Dazzlers would math, science, medicine, and engineering be their totally fun jobs and bomb building and the study of the entire galaxy be considered a hobby. Chuckie was only single right now, as far as I could tell, because he was still mourning Naomi’s loss. The Dazzler weakness was brains and brain potential. Had to figure there was a line forming in the ranks and that he’d be spoilt for choice the moment one of the Dazzlers with empathic ability could give the “he’s ready to date again!” signal.
“Okey dokey. So, back to this planet. Uranium and plutonium are really valuable, right?”
“Very,” Chuckie said. “And not in the hugest supply.”
“There’s no guarantee that Chuck’s guess is right,” Christopher said.
The three girls and I all looked at him, snorted in unison, then the Dazzlers went back to their study and I went on as if Christopher hadn’t spoken. “So, a planet whose core is made of uranium or plutonium, or one of the other desirable ‘iums,’ would be worth fighting over, wouldn’t it?”
Chuckie nodded. “Yes, it would.” He cocked his head at me. “You think that’s what’s going on?”
“Yes, potentially. We still don’t have enough information yet. But I’d like to know what powers all the Faster Than Light ships this solar system uses.”
“All those ‘iums,’” Claudia said. “And I can guarantee that no one here would think that they had enough of them.”
“I think someone would have tried to take over Earth for its resources,” Serene added, “if not for the fact that they’re afraid of you and Jeff, Kitty.”
“Always nice to be appreciated or feared. Okay, all that makes sense and so figures. I also think that this planet’s been tampered with. We have likely suspects in both the Ancients and the Z’porrah, by the way, though there are other options.”
One, in particular. He was helping me just a little too much, more than he ever had before. Meaning that Algar had some sort of vested, emotional interest in what was going on, and my gut said that his interest was in more than the crew who’d been dragged out here from Earth.
“Tampered how?” Christopher asked, sharing Patented Glare #5 with us, in case we might have thought he’d missed the group diss.
“Races uplifted, seeds planted that create special sections that provide special powers to those who reside there, weirdness all the way around. Things like that.”
“There’s certainly precedent in both of our solar systems,” Jeff said. “But what does that mean for us and, more importantly, for all the people we’re here to help, the Lecanora in particular?”
“Don’t know yet, but we need to get to the All Seeing Mountain as soon as we can. Think the warp tunnel can do that?”
Chuckie shook his head. “It’s only made to go from here to there as near as we can tell. We haven’t had the time to do a full test, of course, but since there’s no way to program a destination—like we can with the gates—it’s unlikely that there are other destination options. However, Christopher and I spotted a couple other caverns like the one we sheltered in and this one when we were going all over the planet.”
“Did you happen to find any of our other people?” Jeff asked, in a tone of voice that clearly indicated caverns were not on his Top Ten List of priorities.
“No,” Christopher said. “We did a search of all the planet and Chuck did his
measurements. But we stand out, and we both thought it might not be a good idea for Alcalla and Binalla to appear and then disappear.”
“Especially if we weren’t actually considered Gods or good guys,” Chuckie added.
“Makes sense,” I said to Jeff, who grunted.
“However,” Chuckie went on, “there were excited activities happening in the Green Land—and trust me, it was like being in the Emerald City over there—and in the Blue Land. That’s set up a lot like Venice, by the way, with most of the buildings tied together and floating on the water. And, of course, lots of blue and not just the water. So I think there’s a good chance some of our missing team are in those lands.”
“I’m sure they are.” I was. If there were sentient beings, our people were going to land near them, guaranteed.
“We did sneak around the Blue Land a bit and were able to listen. Caught an old Lecanora telling stories to some little ones, and he was saying that the water went on forever.”
“Meaning, as near as we can tell, that everyone on this continent thinks it’s the only continent on the world,” Christopher said. “We couldn’t figure out how to prove it, and while I know I’m fast enough to run on the water, it didn’t seem like a smart option at the time.”
“That was smart. For all we know, they have giant leviathans in their water that can catch someone using hyperspeed. Anything’s possible, just as this world having one continent and being otherwise all water is possible. In an infinite multiverse, you’d have the probability of having anything and everything.”
Chuckie grinned at me. “Just when I think you never paid attention.”
“Always, to everything you ever said. But I have a more pertinent question. If it’s hella cold outside the cavern, why isn’t it cold inside the cavern? I’d expect it to feel like an icehouse or deep freeze in here, not comfy.”
“Oh!” Serene sounded like the light bulb had just gone off. “Of course.”
We all stared at her. She was still happily staring at the glowing orb. “Um, Serene? We’re all agog to know what you think is an ‘of course’ sort of thing.”